Buying small amounts of pot at so-called coffee shops has long been tolerated in the Netherlands, but cultivating and selling the drug to the coffee shops themselves has remained illegal.

That hasn’t stopped coffee shops flourishing since liberalisation of drug laws in the Seventies, and becoming a major tourist draw card, particularly in Amsterdam, where tourists often visit the cafes to light up a joint.

A narrow majority in the lower house of the Dutch Parliament voted in favour of the new law that would extend tolerance to growers as well as smokers. However, the bill still has to be approved in the upper house, known as the First Chamber, where it is not clear it will find a majority.